There has not been much call for attrition in championship cricket so far this season. Apart from all the juicy pitches around, and the subsequent clatter of wickets, most four-day matches have been dominated by the efforts of hard-pressed groundstaff as rain has lashed the country.

On a slow surface at the St Lawrence, therefore, it was to Northamptonshire’s credit that they recognised the need to capitalise fully on the determined recovery from 87 for four – effectively for five with Rob Newton out of this game with a fractured bone in his arm – that David Sales and James Middlebrook had fashioned in their partnership of 205, and then…